


Full Disclosure

by AwkwardAnnie



Series: Errata and Addenda [1]
Category: Raffles - E. W. Hornung
Genre: Angst, Crime, First Time, Fluff, Love, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-12
Updated: 2012-11-12
Packaged: 2017-11-18 13:18:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/561488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AwkwardAnnie/pseuds/AwkwardAnnie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wherein a theft is attempted, a terrible secret is brought to light and I attempt to set the records straight concerning my relationship with Mr A J Raffles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Full Disclosure

Over these last few years, I have written much of my friend, Mr A.J. Raffles. In particular I have attempted to retell those of our nefarious adventures which best demonstrate the cunning, the guile, the courage and the resourcefulness of my friend the amateur cracksman. In a sense, those stories were written for the public, in an effort to show to the world those qualities which I have come to recognise in private. What I write now, on the other hand, will very probably never see the light of day. Indeed, the only person likely to read this account is Raffles himself, for whom no locked manuscript-box, no matter how firmly sealed and carefully hidden, will ever be considered sacred.

Time and distance have largely dulled the guilt I feel regarding the victims of our schemes, and most of our earlier work is well past the point where a successful prosecution might have been carried out, so that I may write about them freely and with no fear of recrimination. There is one crime, however, which still hangs over me. This crime has no victim, only perpetrators, and indeed I feel no guilt whatsoever regarding it, yet I fear its discovery far more than I do any of our more grievous wrongdoings and that seems a great unfairness. Perhaps there may come a time where this perceived most heinous of felonies may yet be viewed more kindly, but I doubt I shall live to see it. At the same time I feel that my work will not be complete until I set the terrible deed (or deeds, for this was not a singular act but rather a series of indiscretions which continue to this day) down in letters, and that I do my dear friend a great injustice by concealing those aspects of his character which are revealed in the course of this story. I hope, therefore, that the reader might come to this account with an open mind, and reserve judgement until my tale is told.

There are various schools of thought about the art of crafting a story. I am personally of the opinion that one should start a story at the beginning, proceeding next to the middle and thence the climax and conclusion; that is, after all, the order in which one would encounter the events in the wild, as it were. This is a natural approach which has served me well in the past in my forays into both biography and journalism. It is not, however, an opinion shared by my partner in crime, who given the chance will expound at length on the philosophy that the beginning is precisely where the reader expects to start, and is therefore to be avoided at all costs. It seems only appropriate that this time, I will commence in the middle, and we shall see where such an approach may lead.

Finally, if, my dearest, you are indeed reading this, as I suspect you are, I hope you will have the good grace to not tease me overmuch about it, and to return this manuscript to the box when you are finished.

 

* * *

 

 

"For God's sake, hurry up, Bunny, or they'll have us this time!"

I could barely summon up the breath to gasp a reply. My sides ached from our flight through the darkened streets and still I heard the sound of running feet behind us. Ahead of me I saw Raffles' coattails disappear down a side alley and I was stumbling blindly after him when my progress was halted violently. For one terrible moment I thought the game up, but when no voice hollered that I was under arrest I saw it for what it was.

"Blast it!" I cried, then quickly hushed myself. "AJ? AJ, my coat's caught!"

The darkness ahead of me was complete, but suddenly Raffles was at my side, one foot planted on the wall, and with an almighty tug had torn my sleeve free of the wickedly curved nail which had ensnared me. Ignoring my protests at the treatment of my favourite coat, he had me by the wrist and dragged me after him down the alley. In the distance came a shout of imminent victory and I was sure there was no escape, but then Raffles hissed, "In here, quick, and not a word!" and I found myself bundled into a tiny alcove barely big enough for one man, let alone two.

"Don't even move," whispered Raffles in my ear, and I did my best to obey. In fact, I had little choice in the matter, for the gap between the walls was so small that we were effectively pinned together—a situation which I would have been able to appreciate a very great deal more had I not at the same time been deathly afraid of capture and the inevitable disgrace which would surely follow.

At this juncture, the reader may well be asking two different but equally pertinent questions here: firstly, how came Raffles and I to be running for our liberty down a dark alley in the dead of night? And secondly, what exactly do I mean by 'appreciate'? I will deal with the latter first, for it is the central point of this account, and the answer to the former is merely the backdrop on which this whole sordid story will play out.

It is no secret that Raffles is my dearest friend. It is perhaps a less than impressive feat, for I do not maintain a huge number of friends to begin with, but it is true nonetheless. He treated me well when we were at school together, and decidedly better than many of my peers. When we met again many years later, he brought me back from the brink of ruin and rekindled in me a hope I had thought long dead, and while we have had our differences over the years he has never truly failed me at the pinch. All of this I have written about already, and no-one reading my stories of our adventures could doubt that I care a great deal for my friend. What I have (admittedly deliberately) failed to convey is the true degree of that care. Indeed, for some time I refused to admit it even to myself, for it came upon me slowly and the realisation, when it finally arrived, shocked me to my core.

It was, as I recall, a fine afternoon for cricket. Raffles was reclining in a deckchair in the pavilion, watching the drama unfold on the strip.

"It would be nice to retire to the country, I think," he said in that off-hand way of his. "London is fine for the young but it's no place to spend your twilight years. A nice cosy little place, yes, that’s what’s needed, with a good pub, a little church and a village green big enough for cricket. What do you think, Bunny? Wiltshire is nice, or Hampshire, or perhaps Middlesex. We could have neighbouring cottages and you could write for the parish newsletter!" He laughed, but I was miles and years away and didn’t hear it. My treacherous mind had already painted a picture of that idyllic scene, but rather than two cottages, there was but one, with a white fence and a thatched roof with smoke curling from the chimney-pot. Inside, the fire would be set in the hearth, the walls hung with the photographs and paintings and cricket memorabilia that currently decorated Raffles’ chambers at the Albany. Raffles would be there too, perhaps, reading a newspaper in the armchair by the fire. He would ask me how my day had been and would pour us both whiskeys while I complained about publishers and deadlines and how the literary industry was never this cutthroat in my day. Or perhaps I would find him down by the green, and we would sit together and watch the young men play, two old veterans of the great game of life. We would walk back together to our cottage— _ours_ , it had to be _ours_ —after the match and the setting sun would catch in his eyes and the silver sprinkled in his hair and—but he was talking again, back at Lord’s on that fine afternoon. I fought to pay attention to what he was saying but all I could think of was that beautiful dream of us together, and I realised in one terrible rush that the thing I desired most in the world was to spend the rest of my life at his side.

From then on, the situation only escalated. I had always liked to see him smile, for when he does it properly (which is often by accident) his face lights up like the sun and I see for a moment the boy I looked up to throughout my childhood. But after that day at Lord's, that same smile set clouds of butterflies on the wing in my stomach. I found myself captivated by his eyes whenever he looked at me. At night, I dreamt of his hands and his lips and awoke sweating in an empty bed. I felt my cheeks redden at every word of praise and each press of his hand on my shoulder, and where previously his habit of taking my arm when we walked together had seemed pleasantly companionable, now it brought about a deep ache in my heart that no amount of late-night whiskey could disperse, for naturally I could never tell Raffles of the extent of my feelings. At best, he would think me in jest and laugh. At worst he would be disgusted and leave, and it was that that I feared more than anything, for I was certain that I would never survive it. It was a grim situation to be in, and it grew grimmer by the day. Looking back, I like to think that I covered well. I buried my emotions first under a layer of denial and then under a gloomy resignation, and resolved to be more kind and more charitable towards my friend than I had ever been. I was more eager to assist in our schemes and less critical when inevitably I was left out of the final plan.

So when Raffles arrived on my doorstep one day shortly after breakfast with two train tickets to Winchester and a plan to relieve a Lady Pembroke of a ruby the size of a grape and the necklace in which it was set, I agreed immediately and wholeheartedly, all the time defiantly ignoring how the cut of his travelling suit accentuated his waist or how his hat brim tilted rakishly over one bright eye. I had no idea at the time exactly how much hinged on that one decision or what tremendous consequences it would bring.

The journey there was remarkable only in its mundanity; Raffles dozed on his side of the compartment while I snuck furtive peeks at him from behind my newspaper as we rattled across the rolling Hampshire countryside. Upon arriving, we engaged a twin room at a pleasant hotel in the middle of town and spent the afternoon strolling through the cobbled streets, taking in the street sellers, the historical monuments and the ruins of the old castle. I even managed to persuade Raffles to tour the cathedral with me, although he took more interest in the collection of silver plate than the architecture and stained glass that I had come to see. We were eventually chased out by the organist who seemed to think four-thirty in the afternoon a fine time to tune his instrument, and after dinner in a quiet little restaurant we retired to our lodgings where Raffles laid out his plan of attack. All too soon, it seemed to me, the clock was chiming midnight and we were putting the final touches on our costumes for the deed itself.

I will not bore you, dear reader, with the intimate details of how we walked through the outskirts of the old capital arm-in-arm, looking for all the world as though we were proceeding home from a dignified party; how when we came in sight of the old house with its creeping ivy digging into the façade we slipped down a side street and thence over the back wall like schoolboys caught out after gates; or how by means of Raffles' telescopic rope we entered via the second-floor window as softly as shadows, for all of these events occurred without a hitch. I even had the precious gem in my hand when in the distance we heard the slam of a door. I froze instantly, while Raffles cocked his head to one side and listened.

"Was that..." I hardly dared complete the sentence, but I needn't have bothered, for a gaggle of voices drifted up from the hallway.

"It was," whispered Raffles with a half-formed curse. "Blast it, we should have had at least another twenty minutes. Never trust the theatre, Bunny. Stay quiet, they may settle in the drawing room."

But it was not to be. Even as the words left his mouth, a lady's voice rang out above the hubbub:

"...through to the drawing room, Roger. If you'll excuse me, everyone, I simply must remove these earrings, the silver irritates my ears." And then, the dreaded footsteps on the stairs. In an instant Raffles was herding me towards the window with more whispered oaths. The ruby went into my pocket and I descended with rather less grace than my friend, who quickly snuffed out the lamp and followed me. We were almost across the wall when we heard a wail of despair from the window, met by answering cries from the French doors which opened onto the garden. We did not look back but ran, as fast as our feet would carry us, through winding streets and larger roads. At first we thought our escape clean, but our pursuers were locals with the lay of the land and we but visitors in their domain, and they cut us off time and again until we found ourselves in the centre of town with them still on our tail. And so we arrived where this story began, with Raffles and myself wedged in a nook in a dark alley waiting for justice to catch up with us.

Now, I hope you can better appreciate the situation that I was in. I was trapped between an extremely solid brick wall and an almost equally unyielding Raffles. It is not nearly as entertaining as it may sound to unexpectedly find oneself in full bodily contact with a person whom one adores beyond belief and to whom one is also quite unnaturally attracted, but who must never discover said adoration or attraction. As if it were not sufficient torture that Raffles was pressed against me from chest to ankles, he was also breathing heavily on my neck. The only thing preventing me from embarrassing myself utterly and giving the game away was the fact that I was still convinced that I would feel the steely grip of the law on my collar at any moment. Then the crowd of footfalls turned into the alley. I felt Raffles inhale sharply and I did likewise, but then a voice called out: "Come on, lads, we're nearly on them!" and we heard our would-be captors run straight past our hiding spot and on down the street without any indication that they had seen us.

Quick as a wink, Raffles slipped out of the alcove, looked quickly up and down the street, then reached back for my hand and pulled me out and up the alley in the direction we had come. We ran most of the way back to the hotel, only stopping when we were a street away to straighten our clothes and walk the remaining metres calmly, as though nothing had happened. All the time my heart was in my throat, and I did not relax until we had passed through the lobby of the hotel, Raffles had wished the night porter a good evening, we had ascended the stairs and finally shut the door of our room behind us. Then I collapsed into an armchair as Raffles breathed a sigh of relief.

"I don't mind saying," said he as he turned on the lights, "that was very nearly it."

"I'll say," I said after a moment to recover my breath. "A bit of a shambles all round."

"Oh, come now, it was hardly that! Merely a spot of bad luck. Happens to the best of us." Raffles hung up his overcoat and lit a Sullivan. Then he patted the pockets of his blazer. "Blast! We didn't leave the damn thing behind, did we?"

"Hardly," said I, somewhat affronted that he should forget that I had the necklace, and held it up for him to see. The light glinted off the gold setting and danced through the ruby's faceted depths, and Raffles burst into laughter.

"Whatever would I do without you, my dear rabbit," he said finally, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes. "You are a brick, Bunny, an absolute brick; I could kiss you."

I had just run halfway across Winchester in the dark pursued by the short but extremely angry arm of the law. I was exhausted, emotionally drained and very glad to still be alive and free, and most importantly, Raffles was standing in front of the lamp so that the light ringed his curly head in a soft glow as he grinned at me through the smoke of his Sullivan, his eyes sparkling like the ruby that dangled from my fingers. The overall effect was positively divine, and went a long way towards explaining why the next words to leave my mouth were quite possibly the most foolish I have ever uttered.

"Why don't you?"

I cursed my idiocy the instant I heard what I was saying, but there was no way to take it back. Raffles gave an awkward laugh.

"Well, I can hardly just go around kissing chaps willy-nilly without even asking if they mind," he said casually, waving the hand with the Sullivan in it in a dismissive manner. "It's just not proper."

"And what if they don't mind?"

If my first question had been foolish, the second was decidedly dangerous, and yet my mouth seemed determined to ignore the demands of my brain. Raffles laughed again, just once, and there was something almost like spite in the sound.

"What a ridiculous thought. Really, Bunny. Wouldn't _you_ mind?"

"Not at all!"

And suddenly my secret was out. It had happened in the blink of an eye. After all the months of denial and depression and desperately trying to hide, all it had taken was three tiny words. There was no possible way anyone could interpret them innocently. I didn't wait to see Raffles' expression, but buried my head in my hands and wished fervently that the ground might open up and swallow me so that I wouldn't have to face his scorn.

"Bunny." There was something odd in his voice. I did not reply. "Bunny, look at me."

"I'd rather not, if it's all the same to you,” I told the floor wretchedly.

“It’s not, and I'd rather you did." My hands were removed from in front of my face and I found myself staring into my friend's eyes. The sight was almost too much for me to bear and yet I could not tear my gaze away. I felt him take the necklace from my hand and hold it up as I had done. "It's a bonny thing, isn't it, Bunny?" said he, but I knew a diversion when I saw one.

"I think it would be best if we could forget everything I just said–" I began all in a rush but Raffles interrupted me before I could finish my plea.

“Is there something you’d like to tell me, Bunny?” he asked, as though I were a misbehaving child. There was no sense in lying; he could read me like a book if he wanted to.

“Yes.”

“Are you _going_ to tell me?”

“I don’t think that would be a very good idea, AJ.”

“That’s for me to decide. It’s not fair for you to keep secrets-“

“Not fair?” I exclaimed. “Shall I enumerate all the countless times you’ve neglected to let me in on your plans? You’ve no right to tell me I can’t have my own secrets.”

“Now, Bunny,” began Raffles in an exasperated tone, which I felt was grossly hypocritical of him, all things considered. “If I’ve ever failed to keep you up to speed it was only ever for the best of reasons.”

“And now it is my turn. You would not like to hear what I have to say, and so I shall not say it. That would be better for both of us.”

“And what if I were to tell you that I would like to hear it?” It was then that I realised that Raffles had not let go of my hand, although the ruby was now nowhere to be seen. His fingers curled around mine, warm and comforting. “What would you do then?”

My mind rebelled. There was no possible way he could mean what I hoped he meant.

“I would call you a liar,” I whispered.

“Then you would be the pot, and I the kettle,” said Raffles, and he leant forward and kissed me.

My memory of that instant is somewhat blurred, but I believe, to my lasting embarrassment, I may have squeaked in surprise and delight at the sudden brush of his lips. The sensation was short-lived, for Raffles pulled away almost immediately, but I chased after him and captured his mouth with my own. His hands gripped the lapels of my coat and I threaded my fingers into his hair—oh how long I’d yearned to do that!—as his lips parted under mine. My mind whirled, beyond the capacity for rational thought, and I knew only that I needed him desperately and entirely. I caught him by the waist and pulled him to his feet. Somehow the battle for dominance ended with me pinning him against the door, a satisfying reversal of the situation earlier that evening. Raffles broke the kiss long enough to favour me with a truly lascivious grin.

"I say, my dear chap," he purred. "I didn't think you had it in you!"

I elected to ignore this comment entirely, and his next, no doubt equally clever, remark was lost in a groan as I kissed my way down the side of his throat. I will own that my fingers shook just a little as I unknotted his tie and unbuttoned his collar, but my confidence grew—along with other parts of me—with each gasp my kisses drew from him. His tie went onto the floor, along with his collar and my coat, and I set about seeing that his shirt would follow. Raffles slid my jacket from my shoulders as I licked and sucked a trail across his chest, and stifled a moan as I ran my tongue over his nipple.

“Good Lord, Bunny,” he gasped. “Have you done this before?”

“No,” I told him brusquely. “Now do be quiet, I’m trying to concentrate. You wouldn’t appreciate it if I bit you.”

“Actually,” he said breathily, pulling me close, his eyes blown wide with desire. “I should rather enjoy it, if you would oblige.”

Had I been entirely _compos mentis_ , I might have been taken aback by this. As it was, my brain was overruled by my baser instincts. I nipped lightly at the corner of his jaw, then harder at his shoulder, and the noises he made left me reeling in a haze of lust. I finally stripped him of his shirt and left tooth-marks down his torso and across his stomach. When I reached the waistband of his trousers, he caught my head with his hand.

"One moment," said he, his voice lower and rougher than I’d ever heard, and he leaned over to lock the door.

I cannot begin to decribe the sounds he made as I took him in my mouth, even muffled as they were by the back of his hand. I will own that my technique was less than skilled, but his gasps of encouragement and "oh, Lord, yes, _there_ " left me in no doubt as to its effectiveness. I thought nothing of my own discomfort, though by this point it was not inconsiderable, but only of my dear Raffles, and when at last his fingers tightened in my hair and I tasted him on my tongue, I took all that he gave me without complaint. As his tremors subsided I rested my cheek on his inner thigh, feeling his breathing slow and his grip on my hair gradually loosen.

“On your feet, my boy.” Though the command was delivered languidly, in a lazy drawl that sent shivers down my spine, I obeyed it as quickly as if it had been shouted. No sooner had I got to my feet than I was swept off them with, I will own, something of an undignified yelp. I had just enough time to marvel at my friend’s strength before I found myself deposited on my bed with Raffles straddling my hips and gazing down at me with eyes half closed and his hair sticking up every which way. He looked utterly debauched and I couldn’t help but feel like the maiden in a depraved romance novel, about to be ravished by the dashing protagonist. To my secret shame, I rather enjoyed it.

“You’re wearing altogether too many clothes, my dear chap,” Raffles purred, picking nimbly at my tie, and I had to agree. I was hard and aching and his weight was positioned expertly so that every subtle shift of his hips sent flashes of pleasure through me. As he unbuttoned my shirt he kissed me with a drowsy slowness which did little to relieve my agony and only infuriated me to the point of grabbing hold of his hips and bucking against him. He broke away immediately, flashed me a wicked grin and vanished from the bed.

“Patience, Bunny,” I heard off to one side, together with the sound of shoes being kicked off and trousers cast aside.

“AJ, I swear you will be the death of me.”

“Not if I have any say in the matter,” he said casually, swinging himself back onto the bed and worrying at my trouser fastening. He slid my trousers and underclothes down painfully slowly, all the while chuckling to himself, while I twisted my hands in the bed-sheets and cursed him silently. A moment’s pause for Raffles to tug off my shoes and then suddenly there was nothing between us at all, not even air. “One should never make love in a hurry, Bunny,” he murmured in my ear, trailing his fingertips down my chest. “It’s bad for the nerves.”

I was just about ready to present him with a long list of other things which were bad for my nerves, the item at the top reading _being completely naked and pinned to my bed by a devastatingly gorgeous and equally naked amateur cracksman who is well aware of the effect he is having on me and is not only making no effort to resolve the issue but is actually finding the whole thing incredibly amusing_. Fortunately, he chose that moment to wrap his clever fingers around me and all thoughts of vengeance flew from my mind as I tumbled backwards into utter bliss.

 

* * *

 

I awoke slowly to the sound of morning traffic on the street outside our hotel. Save myself, the room was empty, and for a moment I was gripped with despair and the thought that my friend had been struck down with regret regarding our escapades and had fled once and for all. Then my eyes alighted upon a piece of paper, folded neatly in four and placed on the bedside table. Surely Raffles would not be so cruel as to add insult to injury? I opened the note with trembling fingers.

 _Good morning, Bunny!_ it began in Raffles' flamboyant hand, and my heart lifted at the use of my nickname. _Just popped out to run some errands. Told the maid you were sleeping off a bottle and a half of champagne; she shouldn't bother you for a while. I imagine I'll be back by half past 9. I've tickets for the 1.05 to Waterloo, so no rush to get up. Yours, AJR_

I felt dizzy with relief. He hadn't left me! But, more than that, he'd cared enough that he'd taken the time to write me a note so that I wouldn’t worry. I couldn't begin to fathom what that meant, and I didn't attempt to. Instead I curled back under the covers and drifted off to sleep with the piece of paper clutched in my hand.

I dreamed that I was falling. At first it was a slow descent, like the way a feather floats, but soon I began to feel myself accelerating, falling faster and faster all the time, and I knew with absolute certainty that when I hit the ground (if indeed there was a ground, for I could see nothing but darkness in every direction) I would die instantly. Then suddenly unseen arms caught me and held me fast and I awoke with a start and a half-smothered gasp.

"Oh, I am sorry, old chap, I didn't mean to wake you."

I blinked away the strange feeling of sudden deceleration and focused on what was in front of my eyes. Raffles had somehow pushed the two beds together while I was asleep and was now sitting on the gap between the two in his shirtsleeves, reading a newspaper. He was looking down at me now with an expression approaching concern. When I assured him that it had been a dream which awoke me, he didn't look much happier. Then, all of a sudden, he brightened and grinned at me.

"We made the morning edition," he said proudly. "Listen to this: _'Last night, at approximately a quarter to one o'clock, two delinquents broke into the home of Lord and Lady Pembroke of Winfield Drive and made off with an extremely valuable ruby necklace. Members of the household gave chase but were unable to capture the criminals. It is believed that Scotland Yard have been informed and will be beginning an investigation.'_ That ought to entertain our old friend MacKenzie for a while, eh?"

"AJ," I began nervously. I was beginning to be acutely aware of the fact that Raffles was fully clothed and I still covered only by a sheet, which did not make my situation any more comfortable. "I... thank you for the note. I rather thought..."

"You rather thought what?"

"That you might have up and left without me."

Raffles actually looked offended at that. He folded the newspaper and placed it on the bedside table. Then he turned back to me, one elbow resting on the top of the headboard.

"And why on earth would you think I might do that?"

"Well..." There was really nothing I could say that would encompass all the myriad reasons why Raffles might not want to be engaged in whatever it was that was unfolding between us. I picked the first that sprang to mind. "This isn't exactly... normal."

"Normality is terribly uninteresting."

"They say it's not right. I mean, morally speaking."

"Then it’s a good thing I never listen to gossip."

I fell back on my last card. "It's horrifically illegal!"

Raffles regarded me coolly. "I don't know if you’ve noticed, Bunny, what with all the dramatic posturing you've been doing, but I am not one to shy away from something because the law forbids it. Besides, we may as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. Now, stop this nonsense."

My hurt must have shown on my face, because his expression softened and his hand came down to brush a stray hair from my brow.

"Poor little rabbit," he said softly. "Do you really think so little of yourself?"

I muttered that it wasn't exactly a great leap of imagination. I was always the hanger-on, whether it was sitting in a bright pavilion cheering as he got his century or in a darkened house holding the dark-lantern and the drill bits; the Milchester affair had brought that home to me rather painfully. My tone was admittedly rather bitter; not because of anything Raffles had done or said, for Lord knows I would have loved him still even if he had labelled me the vilest of creatures, but because I was still convinced, in my heart of hearts, that he was somehow lying to preserve what little remained of my self-esteem. I know better now, of course, but such is the value of hindsight.

Raffles, for his part, looked exasperated. "Oh, Bunny," said he. "You are really rather hopeless."

Something about the phrase made me chuckle dryly. Raffles raised an eyebrow at me, the question unspoken but obvious.

"You see," I said cautiously, not fully able to meet his eye. "I'm afraid I'm really rather hopelessly in love with you."

"Oh, Bunny," he said again, but this time I heard the ice melting in his voice and I looked up to see him smiling like I'd never seen him smile before--a soft, gentle kind of smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes. Then he leaned down and kissed me, and I clung to him as if he were the sole fixed point in the universe.

 

* * *

 

We missed the 1.05 to Waterloo by a solid hour, but Raffles was able to charm an alteration to our tickets out of the ambitious young stationmaster and we found ourselves on a train bound for London in short order. It was perhaps one of the more fraught journeys I've ever made. There is something about sharing a compartment with several strangers and your clandestine lover (for that was undoubtedly what we were now) which makes for exceedingly awkward conversation; it's damnably hard to make innocent small talk with your travelling companion when all you can think about is what he looks like in the throes of ecstasy. Still, we made it back to my flat without incident and left it only when evening rolled in to take dinner. It was decided that for the sake of discretion we would spend the night apart, but he promised to call early the next morning, having disposed of the results of our hard work in Winchester.

And that is how Raffles and I began a long and complicated affair which, while occasionally tested and frequently questioned, has endured right up to the present day. There is, of course, still much left to tell, though the details must wait for another time. It was over a month later that he first told me he loved me. I do not begrudge him the time, for now he tells me so almost as frequently as I tell him. Then later came the incident with the Emperor's pearl. I have already committed the general story of that fateful voyage to paper, but you, dear reader, will not be surprised to learn that I was less than forthcoming with the true facts, particularly with regard to the effect that Raffles' apparent death and subsequent reappearance had on me. Likewise, our later adventures I have recorded with similar obfuscations necessary to preserve our liberty. Of course, while the more obvious aspects of our relationship have been glossed over, I fancy that the sharp-eyed reader will be able to pick out hints here and there, some subtle and some less so. On occasion, I have even taken refuge in audacity; when a gentleman openly and even brazenly declares that he loves another man, as I have occasionally declared that I love Raffles, it is never thought for an instant that he might be speaking of a romantic love, for who would be fool enough to admit such a thing so clearly? It still pains me that I can never speak freely of my devotion to this one man, but each little declaration like that which slips through the net of society lessens the sting just a little.

Someone once asked me if I had worshipped Raffles when I was a boy. I told them, of course I had. How could I not have? Even as a boy he had enchanted everyone around him with his irresistible charm. But what I didn't tell them was that I never stopped. I have never held much of a belief in God, but I believe in Raffles, in his courage and his intelligence and his indomitable spirit, and I write my devotion like psalms across the muscles of his chest and the plane of his stomach. His soft sighs are my scriptures and when I sink to my knees before him and open my mouth in prayer, the sound of my name falling from his lips like a benediction is all the blessing my soul will ever need.

By now I am sure I have lost the attention of all but the most steadfast of readers, but I am equally sure, my dear AJ, that you are still there, although perhaps more out of stubbornness then any actual appreciation of my prose. It is probably dark when you are reading this, for I know you are restless and often wander the house at night (although until now you did not know that I know) and you never could resist a locked box. I can see your face even now, lit by soft candlelight, with your hair falling forward over your eyes. You will be wearing a dressing gown—the purple one, I think, or perhaps hope, as it is infinitely more fetching than the brown—but you will have forgone slippers in favour of padding around barefoot like a feline. No doubt you are now frowning at my simile, but it is apt; both are graceful creatures with captivating eyes who creep unshod into our hearts like thieves in the night. They may be haughty or aloof one moment and yet warm and caring the next, they may bite or scratch or ignore us entirely, but we remain fascinated by them and we open up our lives and our homes to them in the hope that one day they might come to love us as much as we love them.

There are many things in my past that I regret, AJ, but you will never be one of them. So please, return these papers to their proper folder, slide the box behind the book case, blow out the candle and come back to bed, there's a good chap.


End file.
